'Share with me the contents of my haversack and flask, Captain Colville,' said Robert Wodrow, as they sat for a few minutes by the banks of a wayside runnel. 'We are going into action again--that is pretty evident. "Few, few shall part where many meet"--you know what the poet says; and I care little if it be my chance to fall--after all--after all I have undergone.' 'Don't say so, Wodrow,' said Colville, in a tone of reprehension. 'Why the deuce are you so low in spirit now?' 'I should not be, now that I have met you again, Captain Colville,' replied Wodrow, as he received back his flask and took a long pull at it; 'but I feel--I feel--I don't know how to-day. It is not fear, but as if something was about to happen to me; and a song--a song that she--Ellinor--used to sing seems to haunt my memory now.' 'What song? "The Birks of Invermay"?' 'No--another, and at this moment her very voice seems in my ears,' he said, in broken accent. 'And this song of Ellinor's----' 'Ran thus,' said Wodrow, and, with a low voice and a certain humidity in his eyes, he actually sang a now forgotten song-- 'Thy way along life's bright path lies, Where flowers spring up before thee, And faithful hearts and loving eyes Assemble to adore thee. The great and wise bend at thy shrine, The fair and young pursue thee, Fame's chaplets round thy temples twine, And pleasure smiles to woo thee. 'Yet, 'mid each blessing time can bring, Thy breast is still repining; 'Tis cold as Ammon's icy spring, O'er which no sun is shining; And friendship's presence has no charm-- And beauty's smiles are blighted, Nor joy, nor fame the heart can warm, That early love has slighted.' 'And _blighted_ has mine been, as you know, Captain Colville,' he added, more sadly than bitterly. 'Come, Wodrow, don't pose as a "blighted being," any way,' said the other, who saw with pain the emotion of his comrade, and feared it sprang from one not unfrequently met with on service, the presentiment of coming death. 'Here comes a Hussar on the spur from the front.' 'Toby Chace!' exclaimed Wodrow, as that individual came powdering along the road, but reined up sharply for a moment or so. 'Whither so fast?' 'I am sent back to report that the enemy in great force are advancing from the direction of the city, and occupying the defile and range of hills between this and Cabul, completely barring our advance. The Ghilzies are all mustering, and the road to Zahidabad, where the fifth division has encamped, is threatened.' 'That is the road by which General Macpherson is advancing with a great convoy of stores and ammunition.' 'Yes--so no doubt we shall have to carry the heights before evening.' Toby Chace now recognised that Colville was an officer, though in somewhat dilapidated garments, and saluted him, colouring deeply, almost painfully, as he did so.